What the first impeachment transcripts revealed about Ukraine policy
A retrospective on the release of two closed-door depositions in the US House inquiry, and a Ukrainian parliamentary renaming days earlier.
What did the first released testimony in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump show? On 4 November 2019, three US House committees published transcripts of the first two closed-door depositions, and by 5 November 2019 their contents were being read closely, including in Kyiv.
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on Oversight and Reform and the Committee on Foreign Affairs released the testimony of Marie Yovanovitch, former Ambassador to Ukraine, and Michael McKinley, former Ambassador to Brazil.
Yovanovitch said she had felt threatened by President Trump. McKinley said he had resigned because of his concern about the engagement of US missions to procure negative political information for domestic purposes. He said he had never seen the State Department take part in such activity during his career, with the exception of the Trump administration.
A parliamentary footnote
In Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada had days earlier, on 30 October 2019, renamed the city of Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi as Pereiaslav.
